


i could do with somebody to hold

by soldierwitch



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierwitch/pseuds/soldierwitch
Summary: Michael drags into the Wild Pony later than he’s welcome. He’s made some bad decisions over the past couple of weeks, but he’s given up on staying away from Maria.Post 2x01. Canon compliant up to that episode.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32





	i could do with somebody to hold

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, y'all! New season, new canon compliant fic! As always I'd like to give a big shout out to maxortecho for helping me wrangle this into something that made sense and felt true to these characters. Best beta in the world you are, love!
> 
> This fic is for petermaryjanes. Hope you like it! You're a miracle queen, and I'm so happy we're in this fandom together! Much love, babe!
> 
> Fic title from Somebody to Hold by CHARLOTTE

Michael drags into the Wild Pony later than he’s welcome. He’s made some bad decisions over the past couple of weeks, but he’s given up on staying away from Maria. He doesn't want to, and pretending that he does hasn't gotten him anywhere. He knows he can’t take back the smile he stole from Maria’s lips, or the blood he gleefully spit on her floor, or the woman he flaunted in her face.

He was hurting, so he wanted her to hurt, too. Pain shows you who you are. It takes root and reveals every ugly piece of you, and Michael wanted Maria to see him for who he is not for who she wants. He took care of her. Held her when she needed it. But he’s not that guy. He’s not a hero, and he’s certainly not a savior. Sooner or later he was going to disappoint her, so he chose sooner, and made her see the kind of man she was picking. An embarrassment. Someone only capable of heartbreak and misery.

Michael wanted Maria to hit him. He wanted her to yell. To tell him he’s worthless. To remind them both that he’s not worth loving, not worth keeping because no one has. And she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t do it. Maria stood before him with her teeth gritted, and she held her ground despite him pushing her away. He was bloody and torn ragged by shame. Another woman’s lipstick stained his mouth, and she still tried to erase the distance he insisted on putting between them.

He saw what it cost her. Maria DeLuca is a proud woman. She doesn’t trust easily. Her happiness, her sharp tongue--it’s all armor. No one knows when something is wrong with her unless she wants them to know. It’s the price of living in Roswell and being different. Here you have to develop a thick skin, and Maria barely let anything beneath hers. But she had trusted him, she’d let him in, and he took a knife and flayed her open, leaving her alone and vulnerable because his hope had been taken from him, so he took hers, too.

What Michael has now...he wouldn’t call it hope. But Max is in a pod, Noah’s heart is in a jar, and Liz thinks she can play God. Whatever Michael has now, this tentative, delicate thing isn’t much in the way of an apology but maybe being here and seeing Maria will be enough to give her back a piece of what he took. Or maybe it’s just an excuse to see her. It’s been days. He misses her. He misses her smile, her laugh. Even without hope, Maria made things better. He just wants to do the same for her. He just wants to fix what he broke.

Sighing, Michael rounds the corner to find Maria cleaning up for the night by herself. She looks tired with her hair wrapped up in a scarf. Her bracelets jingle as she wipes at her brow and stops working. A frown is pulling at her lips, but she takes a deep breath and shakes her head.

He hears her say, “You’re okay. You’re almost done,” to herself, and she goes back to putting glasses in the bin at her hip.

“You’d get to your bed faster if you had some help,” Michael says, skipping over a greeting. They’re past pleasantries, and he’s sure if he’d said, “Hello,” she’d have said, “Goodbye,” and left him standing there like the fool he is.

Maria doesn’t startle, but she does stiffen, and her glance up at him is less than amused. Still, Michael counts her acknowledgement as a win. A point in his favor.

“My bed and when I get to it is none of your business,” Maria says, turning her attention to the table to her left.

Michael watches her collect dishes and napkins, throwing them in the bin as she moves across the Pony’s main floor. 

“I could help,” he says in offering. An olive branch.

“If I wanted help, I’d have my staff here,” Maria says, walking right past him and going on with her work.

Michael tries again. She let him skirt around her, let him dodge her concern. He can try for her, the way she kept trying for him.

“Alright, then I’ll keep you company,” he says, turning around so he can see her. 

Maria stops and looks at him over her shoulder. Something passes over her face, but it’s too fast for Michael to read. She grabs her bin again, moving onto another table, but at least she’s facing him.

“That’s not necessary.”

“I know it’s not necessary,” Michael says, stepping toward her, but he stops when Maria looks up at him. She’s not glaring, but the look in her eyes isn’t inviting him closer either.

“We’re closed, Guerin,” she says. “If you’re looking for company, come back when the barflies come to perch on my stools tomorrow night.”

Michael feels himself slip into their familiar dance. The opening is right there and he takes it, letting a smirk come to his face as he says, “Aw, DeLuca, no barfly can hold a candle to you.” 

But it’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it the moment he says it. His words land as hard as the dishware that clatters when Maria slams the bin in her hands down on the table.

“Get out,” Maria says, her voice is a low growl and her hair is hiding most of her face from him.

“DeLuca.”

“Get out,” she says again, lifting her head, revealing bloodshot eyes.

Michael can handle anger. He trades in it like its currency, and doles it out whenever he sees fit. But Maria isn’t angry, she’s hurt. He’s hurt her more in the past few days than he has in the years he’s known her. He can’t seem to stop hurting her even when all he’s trying to do is make things better between them.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Michael’s not one to apologize, not with the actual words. He’s better with actions, but if he’s going to erase the line Maria’s starting to draw, he’s going to have to use his words. “I didn’t mean--”

“Yes, you did,” Maria says, cutting him off. Her grip is so tight on the bin that the plastic creaks. “And I’m tired of putting up with it. I’m not a joke, Guerin."

“I don’t think you’re a joke,” he says, offended by the implication that he’d ever think that of her.

“Then you must think I’m stupid,” she says. “You leave me on read, you blow me off, and you parade your intended conquest in front of me, and I’m supposed to what? Let you act like it didn’t happen? Let you reel me back in, so you can toss my hopes away again?”

“Maria, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your empty apology. I want you to leave.”

“It’s not empty,” Michael says, voice rising.

“I don’t care what it is,” Maria says, snatching her bin up and heading past him back to the bar. “Go home.”

Frustrated, Michael steps after her, discarding his hat on a nearby table.

“Maria.”

She only stops long enough to grab a stack of dishes on the bar and heads into the kitchen, the heart of The Wild Pony.

Michael pushes the door open hard enough that it swings behind him for a few moments before it settles. “I’m not done talking to you.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Maria starts, putting the bin in the sink and turning on the sprayer. “Because I’m done talking to you.”

“When have you ever been done talking,” Michael asks, irritated that she refuses to talk to him. Refuses to let him in even just the tiniest bit. He knows he doesn’t deserve to be let back in, but he wants to be.

Maria glances up at the clock. “Tuesday at two in the morning.”

“So it’s okay when you make a joke, but it’s not okay when I do?”

“I’m not joking,” Maria says, switching off the sprayer and turning to him. “I have nothing to say to you, Guerin. Why would I? It’s not going to get me anywhere, and I don’t have time to go back and forth with you over something you don’t want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Michael says. 

“I don’t know what you want,” Maria asks, scoffing softly. “Really? You want to be  _ alone _ , Michael. You want  _ me _ to leave you alone, and all I want you to do is return the favor.”

When Michael moves to touch Maria, she steps back. “No,” she says with a furious shake of her head. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come in and try to pick up the pieces. I’m fine on my own. I’ve been fine on my own. I don’t need you to come and make it better.”

Maria gestures at the space between them. “Is this what we’re going to be,” she asks. “You push me away because you don’t need me, you don’t need anyone. But the minute you find out something’s wrong in my life, we’re just supposed to pretend, so you can play hero? This week it’s my mom missing. What’s it going to be next week? Or next month?”

Everything comes to a stop in Michael. He hears Maria, but his mind is busy processing what she said. He takes in the bags under eyes, how her skin doesn’t have its usual glow. The frown he’d seen on her lips earlier, he’d thought it was tiredness, but it wasn’t. It was sadness.

“Your mom’s missing,” he asks.

Whatever Maria was going to say next peters out before she can even start her sentence. Her mouth hangs open for a moment before she closes it and looks away from him.

“You should go,” Maria says, quietly.

“No,” Michael says, closing the gap between them. “Maria, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Are you serious,” she asks, looking at him. “Michael, you told me that no one can be saved. You said that hope wasn’t worth having. You wanted me to leave you alone. And I listened to you. I gave you what you wanted. Why would I tell you about my mom? We’re not together, we’re not friends, you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“Stop telling me what I wanted,” Michael says. “You don’t know what I wanted. What did the cops say?”

Maria sighs. “Sheriff Valenti gave me her best ‘we’ll bring her home’ speech like I couldn’t hear ‘even if it’s in a body bag’ hanging at the end of her thoughts. The rest was empty platitudes. I’m better off hiring a private investigator.”

“Sounds expensive.”

She shrugs. “I’ll do what I have to, like I always do.”

“I wish you had told me,” Michael says, looking away. “I would have...I would have shown up for you.”

"What does it matter, Michael? I didn't tell you."

"I know," he says. "But I wish…," Michael trails off. He swallows hard, words failing him before he tries again. Shooting for honesty, Michael realizes Maria will only let him in if he lets her in.

"The only way I know how to keep things is at a distance," Michael says. It's an admission that feels like handing Maria a knife and giving her permission to slip beneath his skin, but he keeps going anyway. "Too close, and I ruin it or it gets taken. In the system, you learn to never let anything close. You don’t get attached to things, or people. They’re always leaving or you’re leaving them. It’s easier to pretend that nothing matters.”

Michael takes a deep breath and then looks at Maria. “I said what I did because my mom died.” He continues, not letting Maria’s sharp inhale and step closer stop him. If he stops, he doesn’t know if he could start again. “I had finally found her, but I couldn’t save her. And I thought I could handle it. I thought that I could handle losing her and trying with you, but I can’t...I can’t lose anymore, Maria. So I pushed you away before I could lose you, too.”

“You could have told me,” Maria says, wiping away a tear. Her voice is rough. “I would have been there, Michael. I wouldn’t have let you go through that alone.”

“So you can go through things alone, but I can’t? How is what you’re doing any different from what I did?”

Maria doesn’t say anything.

“It’s not,” Michael says. “It’s not different. I don’t  _ want _ to be alone; I  _ am _ alone.  _ We’re _ alone. And I know you feel that. It’s why you like your bar to be crowded. It’s why you need to be the life of the party. It’s less lonely that way.”

“And it’s why you like fighting,” Maria says. “It’s why you like getting bruises and leaving them. It’s why you’ll take a quick lay over nothing and drink until you can’t anymore.”

“It’s not about what I like,” Michael says, frustrated though not at Maria, at himself. His behavior, his willingness to let people think the worst of him, is a type of armor. It keeps him from getting hurt. But it’s not what he wants. It’s not. “I don’t want those things.”

“What do you want?”

_ You _ , is the first thing Michael thinks, but he can’t have her. He can’t because if he lost her...Michael steps away from that thought and focuses on the sad slump of Maria’s shoulders and how tired she looks, bone weary like the world is crushing her.

“I want to hold you,” he says because it’s true even if it wasn’t his first thought.

“Michael--”

“I can’t do anything else,” he says. “I can’t make this better. I can’t fix this. But I can hold you if you let me. You don’t have to be alone.”

Maria drops her head into her hands. “It’s not fair,” she whispers.

“What’s not fair?”

“That even after everything,” she says, looking up at him. “That’s what I want, too. It’s what I wanted when you first walked in, and it’s going to be what I want when you leave.”

Michael reaches for Maria at the same time she reaches for him. Their arms encircle each other, his around her waist, hers around his shoulders. 

He whispers, “I’m sorry,” his nose brushes against her neck.

Maria nods and pulls him closer, holding Michael as tightly as he’s holding her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is much appreciated!


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